As BookBar shutters, owner readies new concept, addresses workplace complaints

The plight of independent bookstores in the age of Amazon seems simple: live or die.

But the Jan. 31 closing of BookBar, a drink-and-read concept that opened a decade ago in Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood, is more complicated. Various forces, from burnout and a minimum wage increase to owner Nicole Sullivan’s growing nonprofit and her other bookstore, The Bookies, have made it impossible to continue running BookBar, she said.

On top of that, Sullivan has become controversial in the world of bookselling. She quit the American Booksellers Association last spring in protest of its new policies elevating bookstore employees and condemning racist books — something that she saw as an anti-First Amendment stance — and navigating staff turnover and anonymous social media complaints about BookBar’s workplace culture.

She hasn’t backed down in the face of those, and the success of her other projects hints that she won’t actually be trading work for the quiet life anytime soon.

“Over the past three years I kept thinking, ‘I don’t know if I can continue this,’ ” Sullivan said. “I’ve missed out on so many family and friend things in order to run a business like BookBar.”

The store, which opened in 2013 at 4280 Tennyson St., was unique in the metro area, and there’s a reason for that. Thin margins on both alcohol and book sales instantly set Sullivan’s two-in-one concept on a rough path. As a result she’s barely been able to pay the bills and make payroll over the past decade, she said.

“The final piece was when the announcement came out about the minimum wage increase,” she said, referring to the state law that took effect Jan. 1, requiring employers to pay at least $17.29 per hour. She’s always paid above that, she said, but this latest increase was too high to continue that committment.

“I’ve been attacked by a lot of people for ever bringing this up as part of the decision,” she said. “But it’s simply a fact. We cannot change the price of books and have no control over our margins. It’s hard to make that work.”

BookBar has never turned a profit, Sullivan said. She’s been able to keep it open due to her personal investments, while her other ventures have proven more self-sustaining. Sullivan will dedicate more time to her two children and her husband after she closes BookBar, but she’ll continue with her other big concerns: The Bookies bookstore at 4315 E. Mississippi Ave., which Sullivan bought in 2021, along with her nonprofit organization, BookGive, and publisher BookBar Press (or the 3Bs, as she calls them).

The Bookies, a 50-year-old bookstore that’s mostly staffed by educators, is paying about $11,000 per month to lease its current space and needs to find another one nearby. By contrast, Sullivan owns the building BookBar resides in and is planning on turning it into an yet-to-specified community cultural space — and not necessarily a coffee shop.

“There will be no free wifi,” Sullivan said with a laugh, “so people will be forced to talk face-to-face.”

She hopes to re-open the space later this year with a couple of unnamed nonprofit partners. She promises that if you like “art, music, food, beverages, education, conversation…  you’re going to love what we’re bringing to Tennyson Street [in] fall 2023.” She will not be running the space, she said.

Sullivan’s nonprofit BookGive, meanwhile, is barreling toward a quarter-million book donations since it was founded in 2019. It’s been funded in part by 10 percent of the book sales at BookBar and Bookies, as well as Sullivan’s own money. She plans to hire another person this year to support executive director Melissa Monforti, currently the only employee. The fast-growing 501c3 needs it, Sullivan said, having given away more than 84,000 books to 200 nonprofit partners in 2021 alone.

The books typically go to schools, public libraries, prisons, safe houses for women and “any organization that’s in need of books,” Sullivan said.

Supporters of BookBar expressed sadness when Sullivan announced the closure in September since it was one of a just a few independent book stores in Denver.

“They really become part of your little book community — not just where you can go see your book on shelves, but as a hub for events, inspiration and author meet-ups,” wrote Denver-based author and editor JC Peterson via email. “So losing a place like BookBar feels a lot like losing a friend.”

But some saw it as a sign of the ongoing strife in the indie bookstore world around censorship, equity and freedom of speech. In April, Sullivan quit the American Booksellers Association over what she said were restrictive changes to their free speech and First Amendment policies — often driven by younger workers who painted bookstore owners as hostile to social justice efforts.

“Our discussions around the First Amendment collided with our stated goal of being antiracist and equitable. The reason for this is that, mechanically, if the First Amendment retained its place and we followed it absolutely as its advocates within the membership would like us to, the ABA would not be positioned to condemn racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, and transphobic speech (and books), but might actually be compelled to support it,” the ABA has written on its website.

“We believe forcing our BIPOC, transgender, and/or LGBTQIA2S+ booksellers to witness their trade association debate dehumanizing decisions such as these is unacceptable.”

But in an open letter to Shelf Awareness, Sullivan wrote, “What we are arguing against is the vilification of books and the refusal by some booksellers to SELL (i.e., special order) titles or authors with which they disagree. … In that way, we will actively narrow our collective customer base to solely those who align with our politics. That might feel comfortable and ‘safe’ but how will that pay our bills? … My store is far from the only one that has experienced this.”

The Tattered Cover also faced faced criticism over how it handled a statement about racial justice during the George Floyd protests in summer 2020. That led to broken partnerships, low morale and resignations, following by new ownership.

Another book seller, Rebecca Speas responded to Sullivan in her own open letter, published on Medium, in which she argued that Sullivan’s real reason for leaving the ABA had nothing to do with the First Amendment. “Behind her strawman argument about how diversity is something that can ‘upend the (ABA)’s identity and mission’ is the real issue at the heart of Nicole Sullivan’s exit from the ABA: workers’ rights, and especially marginalized workers’ rights,” Speas wrote.

The Denver Post spoke with current and former BookBar employees for this story who backed that claim, saying Sullivan mistreats her employees. Anonymous accounts critical of Sullivan have also popped up on Twitter and Instagram.

Sullivan denies the allegations and said much of the perceived strife is subjective. “I don’t let personal politics get in the way of customer choice,” she said.

“Five years ago the concept of selling a book to a customer and taking your own personal viewpoint out of that transaction was not even a little bit controversial. One of the worst things we could do is create shame around reading.”

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